Odin Sphere (PS2)
Odin Sphere ''(オーディンスフィア Ōdin Sufia)'' is 2D action RPG developed for the Playstation2 by Vanillaware and published by Atlus. The game was originally released on May 17th, 2007 in Japan and on May 22, 2007 in the United States, with a release to follow in Europe and Australia in March of 2008. The game also received a digital release on the North American PSN store in its PS2 classics section. In 2016, the game received a remake titled Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, which featured enhanced visuals, new stage layouts, a heavily updated combat system, a new alchemy and cooking system, and new soundtrack pieces. Overview Odin Sphere was the very first game the Vanillaware developed and completed five years after the company's initial founding in 2002. The game tells the interlocking stories of five playable protagonists and is a spiritual successor to the 1997 Sega Saturn title ''Princess Crown''. The game's story and characters take heavy inspiration from Norse mythology and classic western literature and it's noteworthy that while one character may serve as the protagonist of one story, they could easily appear as an enemy in another. The game's primary mechanics revolve around using a weapon called a "Psypher" to slay enemies and collect Phozons, which are subsequently used to level up the player's attack power. There is also a planting, alchemy, and cooking system present to assist players in progressing through the game. The game received positive reception from critics, with many of them praising the 2D graphics, intricate storyline, and unique combat system. However, it's often noted that its positive points are bogged down by its difficulty, the repeated use of similar backgrounds and repetitive combat/stage progression, load times, and frequent slowdown. Gameplay Coming soon! Story Odin Sphere's story is told in a series of books being read by a young girl named Alice. The overall story is set on the continent of Erion, which is divided into several kingdoms. The primary conflict deals with the nations of Ragnanival and Ringford clashing over the Cauldron, a mechanism that was created by the kingdom of Valentine. Valentine met a mysterious downfall overnight and the wastelands now serve as a battleground for their ongoing war. Additionally, the kingdom of Titania currently suffers due to the feeble king, Edmund, only serving as a puppet for his court magician Urzur, while the Fire Kingdom Volkenon and the realm of the dead, the Netherworld, remain indifferent. An ancient prophecy predicts that the world will end and be destroyed by five disasters: a monster, a lord of death, an inferno, a furnace, and a dragon. Five protagonists, each wielding their own Psypher, engage in the destructive worldwide conflict with their own goals and motivations * Gwendolyn, a Valkyrie princess who fights in her father's name to gain his love and affection * Cornelius, the prince of Titania who wakes up one day in a dark land transformed into a beast * Mercedes, the fairy princess of Ringford who must become queen following her mother's death * Oswald, a knight wielding dark powers who serves his foster father Melvin * Velvet, one of the last known survivors of Valentine who is attempting to avoid a cursed destiny predicted by her mother. There are many supporting characters who all play important roles in the game's plot: King Odin is Gwendolyn's father and wants to obtain the Cauldron in order to conquer Erion; Elfaria is Mercedes's mother who initially leads Ringford's defense against Odin; Onyx is the king of Volkenon who harbors a deep interest in Gwendolyn; Odette is the queen of the dead who treats those who wander into her realm with cruelty and contempt; and Ingway, the prince of Valentine and Velvet's twin brother who is plotting something in the shadows. All the while, the undead King of Valentine has returned to the living world in a vile quest caused by a heinous insanity. Among all this, the real question stands: is this truly the beginning of the end of the world? Development Odin Sphere was announced three months before its release by Atlus in a February 2007 issue of Japanese Weekly Famitsu Magazine. An English-language version was subsequently announced by Atlus's North American branch that same month. The voice actors for the protagonists of the English version (who were left uncredited) included Karen Strassman (Gwendolyn), Yuri Lowenthal (Cornelius), Stephanie Sheh (Mercedes), Derek Stephen Prince (Oswald), and Michelle Ruff (Velvet). Other notable actors for secondary and side characters included Liam O'Brien (Ingway), Tara Platt (Griselda and Myris), Wendee Lee (Elfaria and Alice), Doug Erholtz (Melvin and Hindel), Nolan North (Onyx, Edmund, Brom), and Keith Silverstein (King Valentine, Beldor, and Urzur.) Atlus employee Bill Alexander, who was in charge of Odin Sphere's English localization, was interviewed by Joystiq regarding the process. The localization team was told early on that the game had a very Shakespearean feel to it, so they wanted to maintain that feel in the dub. Some of the localization was made difficult from a technical standpoint due to the Japanese and English release dates being so close together, as well as English text layout and formatting. According to Alexander: "Aside from fitting the text inside the word bubbles, which in Odin Sphere's case had to be individually resized, we also had to worry about word bubble placement on the screen and the timing of the messages." During the localization process of Odin Sphere's remake, Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, a blog post by AtlusUSA also revealed that the dub of the original was very time pressed and that some NPC characters were voiced by Atlus employees rather than professional voice actors, with recordings taking place within rooms that didn't have proper soundproofing. After Odin Sphere's release, RPGFan interviewed George Kamitani about Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire, another Vanillaware title released a month earlier. In regards to their critical success, George Kamitani said that "In spite of the technological progress in the golden age of 3D, the evolution of 2D game graphics is stagnating. These two titles are about aiming to be at the forefront of this evolution." He was also asked about whether there was the possibility of a sequel or another Princess Crown game. According to George Kamitani: "The stories of Odin Sphere and Princess Crown are complete. Hence, I'm not thinking about a straight-forward sequel." The game's soundtrack was handled by composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, as well as Masaharu Iwata, Kimihiro Abe, Mitsuhiro Kaneda, and Manabu Nanaki, who were all from Sakimoto's company Basiscape. The game's soundtrack uses traditional orchestra music, with some tones designated to be cheerful and happy to signify victory while many others carried a "melancholy melody" to resonate with the emotional core of the game. Sakimoto explained: "While composing the music for Odin Sphere, I tried to capture the feelings of the characters as they struggled to face the truth and determine their futures." Odin Sphere's soundtrack was released October 2007 by Five Records across two discs. The soundtrack features the game's main theme "Odin Sphere's Theme", performed by Noriko Kawahara from the Japanese celtic music group Shanachie. There were also orchestral arrangements on the soundtrack by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra. Reception Prior to its release, Odin Sphere was noted by Atlus that the number of pre-orders in Japan exceeded expectations. Similarly, Bill Alexander commented on the North American pre-orders that there was a "buzz" building around the game. In its debut week, Media Create reported that 59,248 copies had been sold. By the end of 2007, sales had capped at 96,280. Odin Sphere's reception was largely positive. Editors from Famitsu Weekly gave the Japanese version 32 out of 40 cumulative score, earning it the publication's Silver Award. In its western debut, Odin Sphere received an average critic score of 82% at Game Rankings and 83% at Metacritic. Reviewers from magazines Play and PSM3, as well as companies like IGN, gave the game heavy praise for its graphics, detailed and intricate storyline, combat system depth, and overall balance. According to IGN: "Simply put, this 40+ hour adventure, with multiple difficulty levels and extremely deep gameplay mechanics is one of the best RPGs to come out on the PS2 in a while." The game is not without criticism, though. It was commented by many that the game suffered from severe slowdown when there were many enemies or objects on-screen, often to the point that the gameplay would slow to an absolute crawl. 1UP.com said in regards to this that it's "Odin Sphere's one very glaring fault," but that it's "more than worth tolerating." Websites that included Eurogamer also remarked that the game was prone to repetition, stating that "While the immediacy of the action will grab all comers right from the off - the repetition, made worse by the game's difficulty and drawn out length, ensures that few who start on this adventure will ever finish it." Kentaro Ohnishi, a Vanillaware employee and the eventual director of Odin Sphere: Leifthrasir, even remarked in an interview following the remake's Japanese release that he would often hear of players finishing Gwendolyn's story and then not continuing on to the rest. Odin Sphere became the recipient of several website and magazine distinctions. On IGN's "Best of 2007" PlayStation 2 awards, the game won Best Artistic Design, Best Story, Most Innovative Design, and Best RPG, and was runner-up in the PlayStation 2 categories for Best Original Score and PS2 Game of the Year. In turn, this resulted in Vanillaware earning the award for Best Developer for it and GrimGrimoire. IGN would also rank Odin Sphere 44th best PlayStation 2 game of all time in 2010, as well as being one of the top ten best-looking games for the console. The game also won GamesRadar's "Pure Beauty" award during their Platinum Chalice Awards. Among regular gamers and fans, Odin Sphere remains loved for being the title that put Vanillaware on the map as a video game developer and was ultimately what ensured that the company would be able to go on to develop titles like Oboro Muramasa and the popular but controversial Dragon's Crown. In the west, many have praised the English translation and dub for being one of the better ones among JRPGs, with some fans arguing that the best performances boil down to Karen Strassman as Gwendolyn, Liam O'Brien as Ingway, and Keith Silverstein as some of the villains that appear. The game is considered to be a cult classic by some and while the initial excitement died down in the years following the original release, interest was once again sparked with the announcement and release of the remake in 2016, which has gotten praise for being an incredible improvement on the original's many flaws. Trivia * The original release on the PS2 successfully sold 500,000 copies worldwide. * Odin Sphere was actually finished in 2006: however, Atlus withheld the game from release until May 2007, as they didn't want the popularity of their in-house role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 to conflict with sales. ** Interestingly, a number of the English dub actors for Odin Sphere are also present in Persona 3: for instance, Karen Strassman is the voice of Aegis while Liam O'Brien played Akihiko Sanada. * Although Odin Sphere has never received a direct sequel, Oboro Muramasa is considered its spiritual successor, as Odin Sphere is Princess Crown's spiritual successor and the games were referred to as "Princess Crown 2" and "Princess Crown 3" during development respectively. Category:Games Category:Official Material Category:Industry